First Impression

John: I made 12 New Year’s resolutions this year. Now that might seem like a lot, but it’s really not. One of them was to pet my cat more often, and I’m off to a pretty good start on that one. Anyway, the point of my telling you this is that one of my other resolutions was to eat more food. I realize this sounds counterintuitive to most people’s resolutions, but it is what it is. Anyway, you can probably imagine how big the smile on my face was when the sales staff told me I was spending this week’s Dining Duo at an all-you-can-eat buffet: The Lobster House. The restaurant is just over a month-and-a-half old. It’s got a prime and easy to find location right off of the Haynes Bridge Road exit on 400. The location actually kind of disappointed me because I got a GPS for Christmas that I really wanted to use. The inside of the place is like a giant hi-tech log cabin. There’s a fireplace in the middle of the restaurant that adds a nice homey feeling. Oh and I probably should have mentioned this right off the bat, but I didn’t. Tim Altork is back. Copsey’s dual citizenship expired and he was sent back to England (that’s the unofficial story, officially, I think he took a job at another paper), so we recruited Altork because he’s a restaurant reviewer that everyone knows and trusts. For those of you that don’t know him, he was the other half of the Dining Duo from April 2008-March 2009. Altork take it away.

Tim: I feel like Buddy from Hoosiers. He’s the guy that quit the team at Gene Hackman‘s first practice at the beginning of the movie, then mysteriously showed up again in the middle of the movie to tell Gene Hackman that the man he was guarding was chewing Dentyne. Now that I’m back, I’ll be supplying you with equally important information here.

John: A (We went on a snowy night and the parking lot was plowed)
Tim: A+ (Just because it was great to be eating for work again.)

Shelled Seafood

John: Since the Lobster House is a buffet that specializes in seafood, we’re breaking this review down into seafood and non-seafood. Since we were at the Lobster House, we had to get some Lobster. If you get the dinner buffet, it’s $18.99, if you add lobster, it’s $32.99. Now that may seem expensive, but let me tell you, you’re getting the real thing. You can eat as many whole lobsters as your stomach will allow. Lobster House cooks the Lobster for you, you do the rest. They bring the whole lobster to your table and then you break it apart and eat it. I loved it. The meat was succulent and juicy. Plus, it’s not that filling, so if you really wanted to get your money’s worth, you could probably eat about five lobsters before you got full. My other favorite: the crab legs. The Lobster House knows how to cook their shelled sea creatures.

Tim: Agreed on the crab legs. The meat is light, tender and not fishy. Each slab of legs (I guess that’s what you call it) is quite large and contains a generous portion of meat. Also, don’t miss the big tub of drawn butter that sits directly behind the crab leg dish on the buffet. That’s some good dipping. (Breech wanted to bring the whole tub to our table, but I made sure he used the little cups.)Sorry Breech, disagree on the lobster. The tail was very meaty and chewy. You expect that meat to be light and flaky and almost creamy. None of that applied here. Although, some lobster come with the claws intact. The claw on mine turned out to have some very tasty meat, which saved the dish for me. Also worth mentioning is the stuffed crab shell. It had lots of crab meat in a creamy, spicy mix. It was quite tasty.

John: A-
Tim: B-

Non-Seafood/Shrimp/Sushi

John: I just re-read what I’ve written so far and it sounds like the Lobster House paid me to write this. I haven’t complained yet, well here I go. The inherent problem with a buffet is that not all of the food can be kept piping hot at all times. We went at 8 p.m. on a snowy Thursday, so the food plates probably weren’t being refilled as often as they would be during the lunch or dinner rush. The three things that really took a hit because of this was the spare rib, the fried prawns and the house chicken. Fried things are terrible when they’re not hot, prawns included. The house chicken was kind of like sweet and sour chicken and it was actually very tasty. Had it been piping hot, it would have been one of the four best dishes in the buffet. Don’t get me wrong though, you could stay away from these three things the whole night and you will still find more than enough food to fill you up. There’s even a sushi portion of the buffet and every time I came back to the table with a new plate of food, Altork had 12 new sushi rolls on his plate. Was the sushi that good Tim? (By the way, the fresh food portion of the buffet – which included the sushi – looked spectacular).

Tim: Before I get to the sushi (I’ll save the best for last) I’ll give a warning about the shrimp (since Breech decided that shrimp belongs in the “Non-Seafood” section.) Some food is not meant to be served on a buffet. Shrimp can fall under this category. Shrimp meat continues to cook even at the slightest of raised temperatures, so sitting on a warmer causes the shrimp to become very tough and dry. This applied to the Lobster House’s butter shrimp. However, there were several other varieties of the puny crustacean, including fried shrimp balls, that were quite delectable. My wife has been trying for years to turn me on to sushi. She swears by it like Italians swear on their mother’s grave. I think I’m finally getting the message. Lobster House had at least 15 different varieties of fresh sushi, including their Alpharetta roll that had a flaky crust on it and was absolutely delicious.If sushi is intimidating to you, this is the place to face your fears and see what the world of raw fish has to offer.

John: B
Tim: B+

Dessert

John: For the final course, crème brulee, chocolate cake and cheese cake all found their way onto my plate. The chocolate cake was hands down my favorite. It had a light coat of icing which is a good thing. Sometime in the last 10 years, someone decided that cakes should have heavy coats of icing; to me, this goes up there with putting Jay Leno at 10 p.m. in the ‘worst idea of the last decade’ category. The crème brulee was also tasty. Crème brulee is usually served in small portions, but the Lobster House managed to make a larger portion of it without losing any flavor.

Tim: The creme brulee was the highlight of the sweet stuff. The cheesecake was good, but it didn’t even have a crust on it. Cheesecake without crust is like toast without jam, coffee without sugar, eggs without grits (I’m not sure why I’m using all breakfast analogies, um), Jerry Maguire without Renee Zellweger - it’s incomplete.

John: A
Tim: Inc.

Final Impression

John: Generally, I’m not a huge buffet person. My taste buds can’t take getting assaulted by 37 different flavors in a span of 20 minutes. Only at a buffet can you eat fresh lobster followed by fried chicken, a spare rib and a piece of cheese cake. However, the sea food buffet is a brilliant idea. Most men hate chick flicks, but there’s always one or two that they enjoy (I like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Titanic). That’s how I am with buffets. Usually I’m not a big fan, but I found myself enjoying almost everything that the Lobster House had to offer. At lunch time, you can eat your weight in shrimp for only $11.99 (that’s how much the lunch buffet without lobster costs). That’s a deal in my book. Plus, I should add that the Lobster House does not charge a 3-year-old child $20 to eat a buffet. Kids under two eat for $2.99 and kids under 10 can eat lunch ($5.99) or dinner ($8.99) for a reasonable price. If I would have known about this place in December, I would have eaten there every time I went Christmas shopping at North Point Mall.

Tim: This was definitely a worthwhile dining experience. I touched on some negatives, not to bring the place down, but to make you aware of some the pitfalls in what is otherwise a delightful buffet. Steer clear of a couple of things and you’re going to find yourself very full and very satisfied after your trip to the Lobster House.And for the record my favorite chick flicks are When Harry Met Sally and Legends of the Fall.

John: A-
Tim: B+